Ralph Krueger back working with Canadian Olympic team

After three Olympics as the Swiss national team coach trying to find ways to beat his home country, the Manitoba-born Ralph Krueger was wearing Team Canada colours Sunday after officially being introduced as a part of the coaching staff for the Sochi Games next February.

“I got a phone call from head coach Mike Babcock two days after it (firing as the Edmonton Oilers’ head coach)…it wasn’t something I was expecting,” said Krueger, who also heard from Babcock’s Olympic team associate Ken Hitchcock, and other NHL coaches like Darryl Sutter in Los Angeles, out of the blue, offering his sympathies after being let go by the Oilers.

Babcock wanted Krueger on board to tell the Canadian coaches and players how European teams played Canada. Almost like an inside job. Krueger will be a rover on the Canadian coaching staff–Babcock, Hitchcock, Lindy Ruff and Claude Julien–scouting Austria and Norway, the two teams Canada plays first in Russia, looking at other team’s systems, also on hand to scout any Canadian players for the team. It doesn’t hurt that Krueger’s Swiss team completely frustrated Canada 2-0 in Turin in 2006.

Krueger will be team Canada’s utility knife, having the staff prepared in Sochi, with just two days after they arrive there until meeting Austria.

“I’ve coached against Mike quite often (Europe, world championship, 2004 in Prague). It reminded me of building my relationship with Tom Renney. We knew each other as coaches, but not as people. I was included in the Canadian (Olympic) staff right away, in June at the NHL draft, meeting in New York.”

Krueger, who had one year as a head man in Edmonton and two as Renney’s right-hand man, said Sunday he had several feelers to be an NHL associate/assistant coach this upcoming season, from Eastern-based and Western-based clubs. When asked if Dallas Stars’ new coach Ruff, on the stage at Sunday’s presser, had called, offering work, he broke into a big smile.

Not saying yes, not saying no.

But Krueger didn’t want to jump on the NHL horse so soon.

“It was still too raw (his leaving the Oilers with two years left on his contract, replaced by the hot commodity and terrific Leafs’ farm coach Dallas Eakins),” said Krueger.

“Taking an associate/assistant job was going to be a step back…I feel extremely comfortable with being a head coach (NHL),” said Krueger, who could have had his pick of European head jobs, but been there-done that. He may have a home in Davos in Switzerland, but he’s a Canadian at heart.

“This is an opportunity to stay connected with Canadian coaches, at this level. It’s such an interesting opportunity.” Krueger is a workaholic, but he had considered taking a year is off if Babcock hadn’t called. In fact, he had calls from other Olympic teams as well to help out.

“I’ve been through 24 years of coaching and (wife) Glenda has been part of that,” said Babcock. “I was going to step back, at least until the Olympics. My emotional connections to the teams I’ve coached are quite deep. I’m not very mechanical that way, I throw myself all in (Oilers). Getting this opportunity (Canada) means I can stay with the game. There’s so much professional growth with this opportunity. I’ve got a challenging role and it’s driven me forward with my thoughts which you need to do.”

“We brought Ralph on board because he knows way more about the big ice than we do,” said Babcock, who coached in Vancouver in 2010, but wasn’t in Turin, in Italy, in 2006 when Canada was seventh, ill-prepared for playing on a European sheet with a slower team. They lost in the quarters to Russia.. “He’s a real good man, a really good hockey coach. We thought he was a real good coach in our league and he’s been an international coach for a long time.”

He still says he’s not bitter the way it ended in Edmonton. He wasn’t the day it happened and he’s not now. Hurt, maybe, but not bitter.

He’s eternally upbeat.

“I haven’t had time for that (getting mad),” said Krueger, who finally made it back to Edmonton to clean out his apartment a few weeks ago.

“It was very quiet in town, there was nobody there, but the people I did run into were wonderful. I was down on Whyte Avenue and on Jasper for a few ways. People treated me warmly and I was able to reconnect with some of the staff members there,” said Krueger.

“The most important thing I’ve learned in life though is to refocus on new goals and endeavours”.

He’s got it with Babcock’s staff.

“It’s good to have him on our side now,” said Canadian 2010 Olympian Rick Nash, who played over in Switzerland during the lockout.

“I lived right beside Ralph in Davos and got to know him well. What he did with the Swiss program speaks for itself.”

Krueger will tell the Canadian coaches what they want to know about how European teams play, and how they can’t play exactly how they do in the NHL (cycling the puck, heavy forecheck because it doesn’t work on a wider ice surface.

Krueger won’t lose track of one unassailable fact, though.

“You can’t lose what makes Canada great (playing with emotion). If you do, you become weak. You need to keep Canada’s personality mixed in with all the changes they’ll see (European ice),” he said.

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